The UK data centre market absorbed a record 217MW in 2025. A year later, Q1 2026 take-up came in at 19MW. The gap between those two numbers is the story: the market is running into supply it cannot add fast enough.
UK data centre vacancy has compressed from 27% in 2016 to 8% at the start of 2026, with London sitting even tighter at 7%, according to Savills' Q1 market report released today. London now accounts for 1,637MW of the country's total 1,803MW of live capacity — 91%, up from 81% a decade ago.
The 2025 take-up numbers set the baseline: 217MW across the UK (212MW in 2024), with 96MW of that absorbed in Q4 alone. New supply tracked alongside demand, with 231MW delivered in 2025. In 2026, that pace has not continued: Q1 delivered 48MW and absorbed 19MW, a significant deceleration from last year's quarterly averages.
Of the 242MW currently under construction, roughly 66MW is scheduled to complete between Q2 and Q4 2026. Savills characterises this as a limited immediate delivery window relative to the headline pipeline — much of which remains at early or uncertain stages.
Pre-letting has become normal as a result: future capacity is being committed well before completion, and the options available within developers' required timeframes are narrowing. Outside London and Manchester, activity is sparse. Network density, cloud ecosystems and power access continue to anchor site selection in the capital even as competition for sites there intensifies pressure on land and grid connections.
Savills' Lydia Brissy names energy strategy as the decisive variable: in constrained West London locations, developers are now planning for multi-year grid connection waits, long enough that alternative power solutions are shifting from contingency to strategy. The question for new capacity additions is not whether demand exists but whether projects can deliver with sufficient certainty in a more constrained environment.
Savills forecasts some growth in the North East, pointing to renewable infrastructure, grid connectivity and a planning environment more receptive to large-scale investment. But it characterises this as medium-term diversification rather than a near-term pressure release.
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